


The Grand Experiment

by manic_intent



Category: John Wick (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Politics, M/M, That political AU where Santino is the youngest Italian PM, and John is his bodyguard
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-28
Updated: 2019-05-28
Packaged: 2020-03-20 18:12:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,423
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18997885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/manic_intent/pseuds/manic_intent
Summary: “What the fuck happened?” Santino asked, rubbing his temple.John walked over. He was holding a tray with a glass of water and pills. “Aspirin,” he said as he sat the tray down on the bed beside Santino. “Pretty sure someone tried to kill you.”Santino rolled his eyes. “Yes, I fucking understood that, around when someone threw afuckinggrenade into the chateau.”





	The Grand Experiment

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 4/4 for lostskye: John is a bodyguard for the youngest prime minister, Santino. They get wrapped into a conspiracy where a hit was sanctioned by the President.
> 
> Ahaha I don’t know anything about Italian politics tbh, only that it’s messed up. Given Santino’s character and Riccardo’s role in Loro, the Berlusconi film, I think it’s more in character for him to be conservative or in the Five Star populist party. I don’t want to write that though :P so /handwave it is. Apologies to aficionados of Italian politics. 
> 
> Also, as I write this fic, the European Parliamentary elections have trended in a depressing way. Um. I hope you guys enjoy this story.

Snow, glass, blood. Santino opened his eyes, disoriented. The wreckage of the private chateau was gone. In its place was a warm shuttered bedroom that smelled of stale air and damp. Santino was lying on his side on a dusty bed, stripped down to his trousers. Fresh bandages had been wrapped around his upper right arm and lower over his gut. His shoes were lined neatly on the floor. The room was bare, with no furniture but the bed.

Santino sat up, wincing as his body chose that moment to remind him exactly how bruised he was. His head swam. As Santino fought nausea, the door to the room opened to admit John. There was a new cut on his cheek that was scabbing up, but other than that John looked about the same, which was to say that he still looked like a miserable bastard. 

“What the fuck happened?” Santino asked, rubbing his temple. 

John walked over. He was holding a tray with a glass of water and pills. “Aspirin,” he said as he sat the tray down on the bed beside Santino. “Pretty sure someone tried to kill you.” 

Santino rolled his eyes. “Yes, I fucking understood that, around when someone threw a _fucking_ grenade into the chateau.” 

“Launched,” John said. At Santino’s blank stare, John explained, “40mm grenade. Probably shot from the tree line.” 

This was why Santino usually made it a point not to talk to his personal bodyguard any more than was really necessary. Santino had to spend most of his life around John, but it didn’t mean he had to like it. “Threw, launched, does it really matter? Did…” He hesitated. “Did Ares make it?” 

“Not sure. Salvini made it. Saw him on the news.” 

Of his two Vicepremiers to survive. “Naturally. He’s a fucking roach. Him and the rest of Lega Nord. They’d survive anything.” Santino swallowed the pills and washed them down. “What a mess.” 

“Why’d you even appoint him to the role?” John sat on the very edge of the bed. 

“Keep your enemies close and all that. Politics. The Deputy PM role exists at my discretion, so I can control how much power the biggest pain in my ass actually has…” Santino trailed off. “You’ve never been interested in politics before. Did you get a concussion?” 

John eyed Santino evenly. “Hard not to be interested in maybe why we got blown up and framed for murder.” 

“ _What_.” 

“It’s on the news.”

“Couldn’t you have started with… Never mind. Where’s my phone?” 

“Tossed it. And mine. Can be tracked,” John said. He studied Santino. “Don’t want to rest a bit more first?” 

“ _Cazzo!_ Are you trying to kill me with suspense? Get me a newspaper!” Santino snarled. John looked unimpressed by the outburst—in the few years that Santino had endured John’s company, John had always been unflappable. He left the room and returned with a folded newspaper. He passed it to Santino and sat back down. 

It was today’s copy of the Corriere della Sera. Did that mean they were in Milan? Santino didn’t have to look far into the paper—his face was on the front page. The article, perhaps unsurprisingly, was unflattering. The Corriere della Sera had never been huge fans of Santino and his La Famiglia party. They hadn’t forgotten that Santino’s grandfather used to enjoy personally shooting inconvenient people, journalists included. Reading the paper, Santino could almost see the appeal. 

“I’m really the prime suspect?” Santino said, incredulous. Surely the police wasn’t that incompetent. “Why would I blow myself up?” 

“Your body wasn’t found. Or mine.” 

“How long have I been here?” 

“‘Bout a day. You were pretty out of it. Papers were pretty quick to pin you as a suspect so, thought we’d stay low,” John said.

Which might have just exacerbated the problem. Then again, this also meant that Santino hadn’t woken up cuffed to a hospital bed. “Suspiciously quick conclusion.” Ares’ body hadn’t been found either. Salvini was in a stable condition and had not yet released any public statements. The President was calling for Santino to turn himself in. Santino scanned the next few pages, scowling. “Fuck all these old men and their opinions.”

“What do you want to do?” John asked. 

“Where are we?” The room’s windows were tightly shut.

“Outskirts of Milan. Called in a favour from a friend. Should be safe in here.” 

“Get me a phone.” Santino wrinkled his nose—his clothes smelled of sweat and smoke. “And new clothes.”

#

When Santino decided to enter national politics, his sister Gianna had been incredulous. “What, you think I won’t win?” Santino demanded.

“You’re a young, white, handsome, charismatic man. Italian politics has always been a trash fire soap opera hungry for leading men,” Gianna said. “Of course you’d win. That’s the problem. What even is the point? Don’t tell me that you care about the people, or whatever bullshit statement your marketing team might be spouting over social media.” 

“If they do something like that, they’d be fired. I don’t care. I’m in this to benefit us. Myself in particular, for the long term. I can see the writing on the wall. I don’t want to spend my old age in a rapidly dying world, rife with civil unrest caused by escalating income inequality from late-stage capitalism. My policies will address all that.” 

“It’ll be entertaining, at least,” Gianna concluded after a pause. “I think this is the first time that a scion of a prominent System family has openly run in national politics.” 

Santino sniffed. “So-called ‘strongmen’ politicians often fail because they are mediocre men, with mediocre ambitions informed by mediocre imaginations. I look at our politicians and wonder how much better I could do in their place.” 

“There will be questions,” Gianna warned, “and worse.”

“Then I will be honest. I will shove honesty down everyone’s throats. The media, the public, parliament… The novelty will blow their tiny minds.” 

Gianna frowned. “You know you’d have to disassociate yourself from your own family.” 

“In public. I know. I don’t intend to take any money from our family. I have another idea for funding.” 

“Completely. You’d have to step away completely. Disavow us, perhaps. It’s lucky that you haven’t yet been initiated to the Arrangement,” Gianna said. 

Luck had little to do with it. He'd spent years making money off legitimate businesses on his own, creating a power base that couldn't be traced to his family. Santino had never had much interest in the shadowy underworld of puppeteers, or even in the ground wars over Campania territory that his family had fought with other clans for centuries. He had always been born wanting more. True power. Enough power to shake the world—above _and_ below. “Lucky,” Santino said.

Gianna exhaled. “If you’re committed to this path, I’ll send you a bodyguard. He’s one of Cassian’s friends. Don’t argue. If you want my blessing, you’ll take him into your employ.”

“Fine.” A bodyguard wasn’t too much of an ordeal. Or so Santino had thought at the time.

#

John glanced into the room moments after Santino hurled the phone into the wall. He glanced at the now-broken burner phone, then walked over to pick up the pieces. Santino cursed under his breath, rubbing his temple, ignoring John as John padded out of the room. The door to the apartment opened and closed. Santino didn’t particularly care, absorbed in his own problems. A year in politics hadn’t been enough time to gather the sort of connections he’d needed to handle something like this. Nor did he want to rely on his family. He didn’t want to have his party beholden to the System, even if it was to his sister.

The door reopened sometime later. John appeared, holding a takeaway cup of coffee that he solemnly offered to Santino. Santino stared at him for a long moment and took the cup, taking a sniff. Not bad. He sat down on the bed, breathing it in. 

John sat down beside him, within arm’s length. “You okay?” 

“Obviously not. I’m the most wanted man in Italy. Six people died in the bombing. Salvini’s been spreading conspiracy theories in the press, most of which hate me or my family or both. They’re having a field day. My deputy PM’s still missing. I can’t talk to my sister or use—” Santino cut himself off, with a sidelong glance at John.

“Or use the Arrangement,” John said. 

That fucking figured. “You’re Initiated,” Santino said. John inclined his head. “I should’ve guessed. When the background check I ran on you came up with nothing. You’re like a ghost.”

“Would’ve preferred to be a ghost.” John scratched absently at his jaw, frowning at his shoes. “Thing is. I owed your sister a very big favour. Few years back, she cashed it in.”

Back when Santino had first decided to run for office. Santino let out a hoarse laugh. “You should just go. What more can you do for me? I don’t intend to hide forever like this. I’ll tell Gianna that your debt is paid.” 

“She only asked me to protect you until after the elections. Didn’t matter whether you made PM or not. I chose to stay on my own.” John gave Santino a solemn glance. “I know you don’t like me. And you’re a serious asshole at the best of times. But I respect what you’re trying to do. Doing something bigger than yourself.” 

This was the most number of words Santino had ever heard John say at one go—John didn’t often even say that much in an entire day. He blinked. “My politics have always been entirely self-serving. I’ve never tried to hide that.” 

“Yeah. But it’s true that the world needs to change. You’re really good at getting people to see that. Getting people invested. I didn’t use to care about much. Now, I do.” 

Santino had never asked John about his background. “What kind of favour did you owe my sister?”

“Gave her a marker.” 

“You must have been very desperate or very ignorant,” Santino said. While he’d never been Initiated, he’d grown up aware of the Arrangement and its rules. Markers were tokens of favours that could not be broken.

“Was both. At the time. I don’t regret it.” John made as if to clap Santino on the shoulder and thought better of it, keeping his hands to himself instead. “Think you should use the Arrangement. Doubt you’ve got a better choice. Unless you want to die in prison. Or go into hiding forever.” 

Santino scoffed. “I don’t want to be beholden to the High Table. I didn’t become Prime Minister to become someone else’s puppet.” 

John looked away, toward the window. “Didn’t say you should. I’ll pay the price on your behalf.” 

John would…? “The Arrangement doesn’t have that much power. I should know. My family has held a seat on the High Table since there _was_ a High Table.” Santino stared at John. “And you won’t like the price that the High Table will exact even if it did. My sister’s previous request would be paltry in comparison.” 

“Not the High Table, maybe. There’s someone who sits above it, someone we call the Elder.” 

“I’ve never heard about that,” Santino said, narrowing his eyes. 

“It’s recent. Last decade or so.” John raised his eyes to Santino’s. “Think you two might have a lot in common.” 

Santino finished to coffee slowly. This sounded like a badly-written fantasy. No man had the power to smooth something like this away. His sister could find the culprit, perhaps. There would be a trial, eventually. In the meantime, his reputation would still have been ruined. Especially if he continued to hide. 

Well. 

Santino had never liked hiding from anything. “I don’t want to owe the Arrangement anything. That was the whole point of getting elected on my own. I don’t want you to pay any High Table favours on my behalf, either. But there is something that you can do for me. Find Ares. Find the killer and the person behind them.” 

“That gonna be enough?”

“It will have to be.” 

“Okay. It’ll take time,” John said. He tilted his head. “Can you stay with your sister until then?” 

“If I must.” Santino had already seen that coming.

#

“Who exactly is John?” Santino asked as his sister sat beside him on the elegant couch. Santino hadn’t been home for a long time—he hadn’t visited any of the family homes, let alone the vineyard that was the family fortress, sprawling at the foot of Vesuvius.

“I thought you’d never ask,” Gianna said. She smiled her lush and lazy smile. 

Time had been kind to Gianna, even as it had made her one of the most powerful people in the world. On bad days, when nothing seemed to be going his way, Santino liked to imagine what life would have been like had he followed the tracks that his father had set down for them both. Enter the family business. Oversee a counterfeiting empire. Grow rich and fat off the misery of others. Just one vulture of many picking at the slow-dying flesh of humanity, the son of vultures before him. He would die as that and nothing more. 

Santino scowled at her. “I told you I wanted to have nothing to do with the Arrangement.”

“You don’t. John retired. His account was formally closed.” Gianna pursed her lips. “It would have remained that way, had he not then entered a grey area due to a… hm, a bit of a complication.” 

“What complication?”

“Some bratva scion beat the puppy that his late wife gave him to death. John was understandably upset.”

“So he shot this guy.” 

Gianna waved her hand vaguely. “Eventually, yes.”

“Don’t be coy. ‘Eventually’?” 

“After shooting about seventy or so people dead as well. The bratva scion was well-guarded, I gather.” 

“What? By himself? _Maledizione_. What did you put in my house?” Santino yelped. John had never given Santino the impression that he was any more dangerous than the usual run-of-the-mill bodyguard. 

“I put Death’s Emissary in your household. John is the most famous assassin working in the Arrangement. A living legend.” 

Santino sat back, shocked. “Gianna.” 

Gianna patted his knee. “I was worried about you,” she said, as though she hadn’t just confessed to placing some crazed mass-murderer one step behind Santino for years. This fucking family, what even the fuck.

And he’d put John to work. Santino pinched the bridge of his nose. So much for trying to disengage from the Arrangement. “John told me to talk to ‘the Elder’.” 

Gianna drew back. “Him? What for? To fix the mess you’re in?”

“Could he do that?” 

“Probably.” Gianna stretched an arm out along the back of the couch with catlike grace. “Not in a way that you would like. There’s also the matter of cost. You will pay back any favour you owe the Elder forever.” 

“So I thought.” 

“I could ask if you like. As a member of the High Table, I have a direct line to the Elder. For emergencies,” Gianna said. 

“No. It was just a curiosity. This attack, did it have anything to do with our family?”

“No. I had Cassian check with a few sources. If the assassins were from the Arrangement, I would already know their names. And they would already be dead,” Gianna said. Her nails clenched briefly into her palm. 

That was the other problem with the Arrangement. It wasn’t as organised as anyone liked. Not everyone could afford to be Initiated. Or even knew that the Arrangement existed. The Arrangement did not exist to control anything but the upper strata of organised crime. Gianna might be one of twelve kings and queens in the underworld, but her power was limited by its boundaries. 

“I know you don’t want my help,” Gianna said into the silence, “but you’re going to get it anyway. Yes, I’ll be discreet.” 

“What could you do?” 

“Allies could speak out on your behalf in the press. Powerful ones,” Gianna said. 

Santino let out a snort. “The press generally hates me. Left, centre, right… who has the power to change that?” 

“The Pope?” 

“… _What_.” 

“He isn’t part of the Arrangement,” Gianna said, in the face of Santino’s disbelief, “but some of his Cardinals are, and I’ve heard that His Holiness has been following your career with interest. Perhaps he could be persuaded to lend you some support.” 

Better than nothing—even if the Vatican was currently mired in its own myriad scandals. “Do what you can. Thank you.” 

“I told you that you’re getting my help anyway.” Gianna poked Santino’s cheek and laughed as Santino jerked away. “But it’s nice to see that your time away from home has made you less of an obnoxious ass.” 

Santino grit his teeth.

#

John was something else. A force of nature, more than human. As Santino sat in the walled fortress and watched Death’s Emissary fell one obstacle after another in his name, Santino wondered why he’d never noticed. He’d only seen what he had wanted to see. Santino had long thought himself beyond arrogant mistakes, an assumption that was perhaps in itself breathlessly arrogant.

#

“The Russian bratva used to call John the Baba Yaga,” Gianna said as the soup was cleared at dinner.

Santino frowned at her. “Isn’t that a Slavic myth? A forest witch of some sort. ‘Baba’ has a pejorative connotation in modern Russian at that, doesn’t it?” 

“I don’t always ascribe logic to the Bratva. People in the Arrangement, in turn, referred to John as ‘the bogeyman’.” 

“The monster in the dark,” Santino said. He could see that now. Was beginning to see it. He should be repulsed—a normal person would be. Yet whether Santino liked it or not, the System was in his blood, its history and savagery both. His father, his grandfather and ancestors, his aunts and uncles… even his sister—they were all monsters. Family was not a legacy that Santino could so easily leave behind. Even if he had all the power in the world.

#

“It was the _President_?” Santino hadn’t even seen that coming. “What the hell. Are you sure?”

“Very sure,” John said. He looked tired and grim. “Got witnesses willing to talk. Your deputy PM, Ares, found out a few things as well.” 

Smart of Ares to go into hiding. She’d always been far smarter than Santino’s other deputy PM, whose life he soon intended to make as miserable as possible once all this was done. “You’re in contact with her?” John nodded. “Good. Make doubly sure that the witnesses will talk. And that they’d be available to do so in three days.”

John nodded. He didn’t ask any questions, a quality that Santino used to appreciate. Now he looked at John soberly. “Did you kill anyone?”

“You really want to know that?” John asked.

“I take that as a ‘yes’.” Santino exhaled, walking over to the narrow window in the private salon of his living quarters in the family fortress. “I used to hate having to live here. I know, poor little rich boy and all that, drowning in his own privilege. I still felt trapped. As though the rest of my life had already been written.” 

John padded silently up behind him, within arm’s reach but no closer. “I used to think that. Things can change.”

“Do they? Didn’t you kill 77 men over a dog?” 

“I didn’t keep count,” John said. 

“A man who would kill 77 people over a dog.” Santino turned around, prowling up to John until they were inches apart. John was taller than he was, and it was annoying to have to look up. “Can a man like you change? Believe in better things?”

“Don’t know about better things,” John said, meeting Santino’s gaze. “I believe in _you_.” 

“A new master. One that you serve out of idealism? Please. Even before I knew what you were, I could see that you weren’t that kind of person.” Santino stroked his fingertips over John’s jaw and watched his eyes grow wide and dark. “I think you have another reason, one that I can trust. How long have you wanted me?” 

John grew very still. He let out a shaky breath as Santino closed in, kissing John on the lips. John inhaled sharply. He pulled Santino closer, stroking his palm tentatively down Santino’s spine, lingering uncertainly on the small of his back as though expecting Santino to jerk back.

“If it all works out,” Santino said, “you’ll be due a better reward.”

“I don’t expect anything from you.” John brushed a kiss against Santino’s jaw and buried his mouth against his throat. “That was never the point.”

“I know. You will be grateful for whatever you can get.” Santino pinched John pointedly on the ass, smirking as John hissed and jerked against him.

#

The President shot to his feet as Santino sauntered into his office in the Quirinale. “Security!”

“Don’t bother. Things will get very messy.” Santino settled into one of the ornate guest chairs before the antique desk, slouching into the turquoise velvet cushions and crossing his legs. He made a lazy gesture around the richly furnished room. “Rather depressing, isn’t it? This kind of interior decoration. Makes you feel like you’re working in a museum, surrounded by ghosts. Maybe that’s part of the problem. _Sit down_.”

The President sat, his face waxen. His gaze jumped from Santino over to the door, which John had closed behind them. “Santino, there’s a warrant out for your arrest. You should—”

“Don’t. Tell me what to do. I’ve had a very trying few days, thanks to you. Don’t bother denying anything, we’ve been very thorough. Your secretary has confessed, the little team of mercenaries you employed have confessed. We have traced the money. You haven’t been as careful as you think.” 

“Oh? Why haven’t I been arrested? Why haven’t you gone public? I used to be a judge. If you think you can intimidate me, you’re decades too young for that.” 

“I don’t see why my age is relevant. Though I do think that old men like you are so used to power that it often makes you ignorant of your circumstances. Power makes people like you into petty and jealous little creatures, always hungry for more.” Santino smiled thinly. “I thought you were different. I confess I didn’t think you would be an enemy. Many of our policies are the same. What changed?”

“Me, not an enemy?” The President let out a hoarse laugh. “My brother, boy. Do you know what happened to my brother?”

“Ahhh, I see. Blood feuds, I understand that. Yet your brother was killed by Cosa Nostra. Not by the System, or by my family. I had nothing to do with that. When your brother was killed, I hadn’t yet been born.” 

“Cosa Nostra, Camorra, ‘Ndrangheta, all of you carrion-eaters are the same. And only a Camorristi calls the Camorra ‘the System’,” the President shot back. “I would rather die than see one of your kind occupy the Palazzo Chigi. Kill me now or fight me in court, I have no regrets.”

Santino shook his head, looking away. “This feud, it is pointless. Don’t you see? Twelve years, that’s what we have left to combat climate change. That’s what I want everyone to see. All the skirmishes we have, all the concerns about migration and nationalism, the tribalism between right, left, centre, it is so _petty_. I don’t understand why no one in power can see it. What is the point of amassing wealth and influence now, when the world may fight over clean water in a few decades? I’m younger than you are, and will live for a while yet. I don’t want to live in a world where global war is normal, where everyone slowly becomes less and less than human. 

“And it’s all because of petty, old, ignorant men in power who will die before they truly suffer the consequences of their actions.” Santino pushed himself to his feet, circling around the desk and leaning in until his mouth was close to the President’s ear. “I’ll tell you a secret. Sometimes I wish I could kill all the petty, old, powerful men in the world. I think it is possible. My friend over there is a very talented killer. I could use him to burn the world order down.”

“So why don’t you?” the President grit out.

“What would be the point? More powerful, petty old men will rise from the ashes.” Santino straightened up. “My family history has taught me that violence and savagery only bring more violence and savagery. I want to make a new way. To show other democracies that it can be done.” He patted the President on the cheek. “That petty, old, powerful men need not always be in power.” 

The President jerked away, his face contorted with rage. When he spoke, however, he said, “It is too late to change anything.”

“We will see.” Santino walked back to the front of the desk, leaning his hip against it and folding his arms. “Perhaps this attack against me, Ares, and Salvini was a terrorist attack. Someone will claim responsibility. Italy will stand united and all that.” 

“Hah,” said the President.

“Or we could fight things out in the courts. My reputation will be damaged, and I will ruin yours in return. The country will swing to the right in the next elections. Salvini might make even greater gains in the next European Parliamentary elections, him and a host of other far-right parties across the union. You might take me down, you might not. Your victory will be hollow, your revenge on behalf of a man long dead, pointless. You will die knowing that your legacy fractured the very country you tried to protect.” Santino inclined his head. “It’s your choice.” 

The President rubbed his palms over his face, exhaling shakily. “Bastard. You bastard. A curse on you and all your kind. You’re all rats. Plague rats!” 

“I never claimed to be a good man,” Santino said, pushing away from a desk. “Yes, I’m a rat. A rat that doesn’t want to leave the sinking ship. I want to fix it. Not because I care about all the other rats trapped on it with me. I want to fix it because I like this ship. I want to live on it in comfort until I die. So. You can help me, or I can destroy you. Your choice.”

#

It took Santino a week of putting out fires before he was comfortable enough to move back into the Palazzo Chigi. He never did like living in it. It was just like the Quirinale, a museum of a building that housed the echoes of a long-dead empire.

John had been quiet and bemused through prep, as though afraid of saying anything that might get Santino to change his mind. It had been a long time since Santino had indulged in anything like this. It was too dangerous before. Now—now he deserved his due. They both did. “Fuck me here,” Santino said, against the elegant claw-footed tub in the marble ensuite bathroom, “then again on the bed.” He felt the command resonate through the body pressed against him as a tremor. 

John kissed Santino’s throat and curled an arm around his back to brace his weight, sliding his free hand up one of Santino’s thighs to push them open. Santino dug fingers into John’s shoulder and grinned lazily as he guided John’s slicked cock inside him. It was a reluctant fit—John was deliciously big. Santino locked his heels around John’s back and cursed at each inch that his body gave, his nails drawing bright weals down John’s chest. John’s teeth were clenched, his gasps choked out over Santino’s shoulders, his eyes closed as he eased in to the hilt. 

Santino swore until he was out of words, then he gasped and began to laugh, waiting for the fit to ease. “I like how you feel,” he whispered into John’s ear, “even like this. When it hurts.” He pulled John’s preferred gun hand up from where it was curled around his hip, sucking in the trigger finger to the knuckle and smirking around it as John moaned his name. 

John rocked against him tentatively as Santino nudged his back with a heel, grunted when they nearly slipped, and hauled Santino up against him, getting a hand under Santino’s ass. He picked Santino up, muscles bunching, and wedged him against the wall, shoving him up an inch. His teeth grazed Santino’s throat as Santino chuckled and grabbed for the towel rail, clenching the fingers of his free hand into John’s hair. John lifted Santino’s thighs over his arms and kissed his shoulders, waiting. 

“Do it,” Santino breathed. Another tremor shook through John’s lean frame. He was a quick learner. Santino had fucked John on the night that the President had acquiesced to his plan, and on the night that the pieces had fallen into place. Each time, John had to be goaded into using his strength. Now, John didn’t need further prompting to start fucking Santino the way Santino liked it, bruising him between John’s thrusts and the tiles, locking his teeth over Santino’s skin and biting. Santino arched against John with a yowl, held fast and lost in ecstasy. He raked his nails down John’s back, bled him as they kissed. He had been born a monster to a family of monsters and deep down, he craved the company of his own kin. They tore pleasure from each other as Santino fed off John’s desire, his devotion. Piece by piece. 

In the shower afterwards, John hummed as he soaped Santino’s shoulders, tangling his fingers through his drenched curls. His hands slid down the unmarked arch of Santino’s back to his freshly bruised hips, parted the cleft of his ass with his thumbs to look at his soiled hole. Santino smirked at him and turned the water off. “Do something about the mess,” he said. John nodded, going down on his knees.

#

“To another successful term,” Gianna said, as she toasted Santino on the morning after the new election in the family villa in Rome.

“To many terms to come,” Santino said, and drank. 

“I still think you are too optimistic,” Gianna said, spearing a croissant with a fork. “You may be the most powerful man in Italy, but you cannot do much just with Italy. The years should have shown you this.” 

“I’m aware,” Santino said. It’d taken him his first term to learn this lesson, even as he’d had to waste time putting out various political dramas. Try to fix the flagging economy, address unemployment, more. The effort had perhaps been worth it. He had won with enough of a margin to have a mandate. 

“I’m not sure if you’d last that much longer,” Gianna said. As Santino opened his mouth to argue, Gianna gestured at the papers. “You’ve seen how the winds are blowing. Everywhere in the world. It’s easier to reach the average person by appealing to the very worst of their impulses. That is still the same. Here, everywhere.” 

“It’s ridiculous that Berlusconi is the longest-serving Prime Minister we’ve ever had. If you look at it that way, the bar isn’t that high.” Santino took a long sip of his glass. “I don’t believe in pandering to human stupidity. Nor do I believe in trying to appeal to anyone’s better instincts. We know how that always goes.” The System had survived so long because it had an intimate grasp of human nature.

“What then?” Gianna asked. 

“I’ve always believed in the efficient application of ruthlessness,” Santino said, “for the right reasons. _My_ reasons.” 

“Still so arrogant.” Gianna patted his wrist affectionately. “You should keep John with you for a while longer.” 

“He’s very useful,” Santino said. He could see John in the corner of his eye, haunting the background. Santino’s constant reminder of the Arrangement. “I also think it’s time that I talked to the Elder.” 

John straightened up, even as Gianna frowned a little. “You’re certain,” Gianna said. 

“Just a chat.” It would be relatively easy to set fire to the world order. To build and keep something new, however, Santino would need powerful allies. 

“Very well. To now, and our future,” Gianna said, offering another toast. 

Santino touched her glass. “Now, and the future.”

**Author's Note:**

> twitter: @manic_intent  
> tumblr: manic-intent.tumblr.com  
> \--  
> Refs:  
> https://www.thelocal.it/20190525/how-eu-elections-could-lead-to-collapse-of-yet-another-italian-government  
> Also lol: https://www.thelocal.it/20190508/italian-pm-sacks-armando-siri-minister-suspected-of-corruption-and-mafia-ties  
> https://www.wired.com/story/italy-five-star-movement-techno-utopians/  
> https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/mar/05/the-guardian-view-on-italian-elections-a-lesson-for-progressives  
> https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/05/eu-elections-produce-fragmented-parliament-high-turnout-190526233212988.html


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